Midnight Special by Phoef Sutton Page B

made his way up the stairs. After Eva.
    Barnabas got to his feet and started to chase after him. But then he heard screams coming from inside the theater. Finally. It was happening!
    Barnabas rushed for the door that wasn’t barricaded by the popcorn maker. He flung it open.
    And revealed bedlam.
    There were at least three “infected” people. One was picking up a young man and slamming him down onto a seat, breaking his back. Another had a young woman down in the aisle and was digging at her face, peeling it off bit by bit. The third had chased a man up the side of the wall. The man was hanging from the balcony. He lost his grip and tumbled down into the seats.
    On the screen, the zombies were on the attack too. Ripping off faces. Breaking backs. Mirroring what was happening in the theater. Or was it the other way around?
    It was all melding into one great scene of horror, and the red eyes of the harpy in the ceiling were spitting fire.
    Barnabas was thrilled.
    He raised his sword, and as the people ran madly up the aisle to escape, he was ready.
    To stop them.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
    The four walls seemed to close in on Matt. The more he circled them, the more they seemed like his whole world. And the little window that looked out onto the screen drew his focus no matter how much he tried to look away.
    The woman on screen who was Gina-but-not-Gina lay unconscious on the bathroom floor. The zombie bent over her and sniffed at her. He lifted her up in his arms and began to carry her away, in the time-honored way that every monster from the Mummy to the Creature from the Black Lagoon had carried away damsels to their lairs. What did they plan to do to them when they got them there? The movies never said. The hero always came to the rescue before the monster’s desires could be fulfilled.
    In this case the hero was a continent away, locked in a tiny room, watching the monster rape and devour the girl. Forever.
    Matt closed his eyes.
    He could still see the movie, as if it was projected on the inside of his eyelids. He literally couldn’t look away.
    “It’s inside you now,” Zander said. “By the time this screening is over, you will be the movie. And I will be free.”
    Matt looked at Zander, fading away in the shadows of the projection booth. He could still see the movie out of the corner of his eye. It would always be there.
    “Free?” Matt asked him.
    “Free to die,” Zander said, his voice full of wistful desire.

    Eva ran.
    She ran from the madness she heard erupting down in the theater. She ran from the footsteps of the tall man on the stairs behind her. She ran from the insanity that seemed to ooze from the walls around her.
    “Girl!” the tall man called out; an order, a demand, an ultimatum.
    She ran to the office door and flung it open. Flint was there, lying chained to the wall, dead, with staring eyes that seemed to cry out to her.
    She backed out of the doorway and into the tall man’s arms.
    He seized her, pulling her to him, squeezing the life out of her.
    Eva twisted around in his grasp and kissed him.
    The tall man hesitated, as if recalling something from his life before the movie, a desire more primal than the desire to kill.
    That hesitation was all Eva needed. She reached her hand to his face and dug her black fingernails into his left eye. He screamed, a blast like a foghorn from deep in his soul.
    She pushed him away and ran down the hall.
    His footsteps faltered; then she could hear them chasing after her.
    She turned the corner and saw the door to the projection booth. It had been busted down and was lying in pieces on the floor, so it would afford her no protection. But it was the only way open to her.
    She sprinted into the projection booth hoping against hope that Matt would be there.
    With his ax.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
    Matt had no idea how long he’d been watching the film. It might have been minutes. It might have been hours.
    It might have been years.
    His life before the movie